


With Swallow's Wings

by whitenoise27



Category: Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears (2020), Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: And Then Some, Canon Compliant, Episode: s02e09 Framed for Murder, F/M, but there are major movie spoilers in it, it's not a movie-fic per se, post-ep, so I included the tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26182066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitenoise27/pseuds/whitenoise27
Summary: “Did you have a boyhood dream, Jack? To tread the boards, or bat for Australia?”“Oh, to ride the Tour de France. But then the war happened.”
Relationships: Jack Robinson & Jane Ross, Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 22
Kudos: 68





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short and fluffy 2x09 episode tag, and it turned into a nearly 10k multi-chapter with a dash of angst and some other challenges, because you can't triumph over adversity if there's no adversity. I expect it will be three chapters, plus an additional "chapter" at the end with sources and historical notes for my fellow Ravenclaws, as I did a fair amount of research for this. 
> 
> Title is taken from Richard III, Act 5 Scene 2: "True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings. Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings."

“It’s not too late, you know.” 

Jack looked up from where he’d been considering his next move on the draughts board. “For what? Me to win this game?” 

“Oh, no, it’s _far_ too late for that. You used that same gambit last week; you’ll have to be more creative if you expect to beat me. No, I meant it’s not too late for you to ride the Tour de France.” 

He let out an amused scoff and moved one of his pieces. “Yes it is.” 

Phryne barely glanced at the board before making her own move. “What makes you think so?” 

“A three-week-long bicycle race around the perimeter of France? That’s a young man’s game. I’m too old for all that, now.” 

“Jack, you’re 37. That’s hardly geriatric.” She ignored the look he gave her. “Firmin Lambot was 36 when he _won_ , and there have always been plenty of riders competing from the wrong side of 40.” 

“They’ve trained for it, for years.” 

“What do you call those daily rides you take? It’s your move.” 

“I’m thinking. How did you know I ride every day?” 

“You’ve met your constable, right? Never tell Hugh anything you don’t want me to find out, Jack; you should know that by now. Besides, I’ve seen you in swim trunks, and you don’t get thighs like that by sitting behind a desk doing paperwork.” 

Jack shot her a reproachful look before ducking his slightly reddened face back to the board and moving one of his pieces. It wasn’t the move Phryne was expecting him to make, and this time she considered the layout for a moment before choosing her own move. Satisfied that she didn’t need to change her strategy, she jumped one of his pieces. 

“In any case,” Jack said, “riding an hour or two on the streets of Melbourne is not the same as riding all day through the Pyrenees Mountains.”

“So you train a bit harder for a few months. You’d be hard pressed to make this year’s race, anyway; it’s less than two months away. But that just means you have a whole year to train up, and you can go next year.” 

He shook his head in fond exasperation. “And what about my job? I should just up and leave for three months? I doubt the Commissioner would be too happy about that.” 

“Surely the force owes you _some_ leave. When was the last time you took a holiday?” 

Jack was suddenly very occupied by the draughts board in front of him.

“It was before the war, wasn’t it?” she asked gently. 

“I couldn’t afford it anyway,” Jack said, dodging the question and making another move. “The steamer ticket, the entry fee, the lodging… it all adds up to a lot more than my wages.” 

Phryne absently jumped another of Jack’s pieces, but instead of adding it to the pile of her other captures she toyed with it, floating it between her fingers. “And what if you had a sponsor?” 

That made him look up. “Are you saying...? No, no, I couldn’t ask you to—” 

“You’re not asking me. In fact, you’ve been fighting me tooth and nail since I brought it up. I’m offering.” 

Game temporarily forgotten, he searched her face. “Why?” 

She shrugged, still toying with the brown checker. “Do I need a reason?” He continued to stare at her, and she fought a smile. She loved rendering Jack speechless, and she gave herself a few moments to savor it before she continued. “I’ve been thinking about it since our talk earlier, about childhood dreams. You helped Raymond achieve his—“

“I said six words into a microphone,” Jack said dismissively.

“— and you’ve…” She cleared her throat lightly, and became acutely interested in the game piece in her hand. “... become quite an integral part of my own, over the past year.” 

“And I fought you tooth and nail against that, too.” 

She looked up to see his eyes sparkling with humor, and she let out a breath and smiled. “Luckily for you, I enjoy a challenge.” She reached across the table to touch his arm. “And so do you. Which is why you should go.” 

“You really think I could do it?” he asked, and the amusement in his eyes was replaced by something else, a hope and a longing that had been dampened by time, tentatively daring to be rekindled. For an instant he looked decades younger than his 37 years, and she got a glimpse of what he must have been like as a youth, all blood and fire and bravado, ready to take on the most challenging bicycle race in the world. Before war and grief and years of dealing with the darkest side of humanity had done their best to stamp it all out. 

Well, they hadn’t snuffed it out entirely, and Phryne would do whatever it took to feed that small flame until it carried him all the way to the finish line at Champs-Élysées. 

“I _know_ you can, Jack.” 

“Hm,” was all he said, and returned his attention to the almost forgotten game board. Taking an opportunity she hadn’t even noticed, he jumped two of her pieces and landed on the back row, ready to be crowned. She looked more closely as she stacked the piece with the disc in her hand. She’d been ahead, but now she was down by one, three pieces on the board to his four. And there wasn’t a single move she could make that wouldn’t give him a capture of at least one more. She looked up at him. His face was a picture of innocence, but there was a smugness under there, if you knew where to look. He’d beaten her, and he knew it. 

“ _Jack Robinson..._ ” 

“You said you like a challenge.” 

She laughed; she couldn’t help it. She’d never liked losing, but somehow she was delighted that Jack had turned the tables on her and won. She wasn’t even sure when she’d lost control of the game. “I guess it wasn’t too late, after all.” 

“No, it wasn’t.”

~*~*~

And so Jack trained. His work schedule didn’t allow for an increase in the duration of his daily rides, so instead he pushed himself harder, sought out more challenging routes, tried to go further, faster. On his days off, he would drive out to the Dandenongs and ride the bushwalking paths, first in the foothills, then gradually moving up to the steeper mountain trails. He rode in all weather — rain, wind, fog, blistering heat and freezing cold. He rode to celebrate the victory of a solved case, and he rode even faster to outrun the emotional turmoil of almost-kisses under mistletoe, of “gentlemen houseguests” and “old friends,” of marriage proposals from the wrong woman, of watching the right woman fly away in a tiny plane with an irate father. 

He kept riding even though he knew there was little chance she’d be back in time to keep her promise of sponsorship. When he learned about her marriage, he rode harder still, no longer training for a race, and instead trying desperately to leave her memory behind. 

And then she died, and in the absence of anything else to do, he rode for miles and miles and miles. 

The worst part about the steamer trip to London (apart from the reason for it) was the lack of a bicycle and anywhere to ride it. Trapped on the boat, he couldn’t outrun the demons chasing him. He paced the deck relentlessly, clenched fists longing for the grip of the handlebars, feet itching for the rhythm of the pedals, face turned toward the bow for a taste of that freeing wind. 

When she returned from the dead and he stalked away from the memorial, he used the last of his cash to rent a bike and rode the streets of Whitechapel. 

After they’d reconciled (and he had to admit, the stamina he’d built up over the last several months had come in very handy for _that_ ), he was sure she must have forgotten about the whole thing, and he wasn’t sure how to bring it up, or if he even should. 

He rented a bike in India anyway, borrowing some money from Phryne with a promise to pay it back (”Jack Robinson, don’t you dare. Renting you a bicycle is the least I can do.”), and rode off the conflicted feelings stirred up by investigating the death of her husband. (Her _husband_!)

As he coasted up to the hotel in Alwar at the conclusion of his ride, he wondered if maybe he should bring it up, after all. Now that they’d worked out their differences, and they were halfway home, and he wasn’t running away anymore, he found that he wanted that race, badly. And it was her fault, anyway, for reigniting the desire in the first place. 

But the offer had been made a long time ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed since that quiet evening in front of the draughts board. Maybe she’d changed her mind. Maybe she’d never been serious about it to begin with. This new phase of their relationship still felt tenuous enough that he was reluctant to push her. She’d given him her heart, and he was painfully aware of how precious that gift was. It would be supremely selfish to ask her for anything more than that. 

_And yet..._

His ambivalence, however, was rendered moot a few hours later, when she raised the subject herself. Curled up against him on the bed that night, head resting on his shoulder, she said, sadly, “It’s July.” 

Not only had she not forgotten, she sounded even more disappointed than he was. “So it is.” 

“I’m sorry we didn’t make it this year. We’ll go next year, I promise.” 

“ _We_?” 

“You didn’t think I was going to send you to Paris alone?” 

Truth be told, he’d never considered that she might come with him. “I don’t expect you to put your life on hold for months while I go on a 3,000 mile bike ride.” 

“Jack,” she said, propping herself up on an elbow to look him fully in the eye. “You are a part of my life. Sharing something that’s important to you isn’t putting my life on hold. Besides,” she added, tucking herself back up against him, “if you think for a moment that I’m going to let you have all the fun and adventure…” 

“Well, when you put it like that…” 

~*~*~

Their return to Melbourne went off with as much fanfare as one would expect from the Honourable Phryne Fisher, with wild parties and late nights and tearful reunions. It was some time before things settled back into anything resembling normal.

The Chief Commissioner was quite unhappy that Jack had not only been gone much longer than his allotted leave, but had also returned with the woman he’d supposedly gone away to mourn. For a few tense days, there was a definite possibility that Jack wouldn’t get his job back. Then he showed up at Phryne’s doorstep with a letter in his hand. “Commissioner Roberts,” he said, holding up the letter as he stepped into the foyer, “tells me he got a telephone call from the Prime Minister.” 

Phryne did her best to feign ignorance, but the smile crept up on her face anyway. “Must’ve been important.” 

“Something about not letting ‘the best detective inspector in the empire’ get away.” 

“It must be nice to be so appreciated.”

He put an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “It is.” And he proceeded to show her just how nice it was, until a startled gasp and hasty apology from Dot reminded them that they weren’t in the most private of locations. 

“He also said,” Jack continued, looking adorably flustered but also ridiculously pleased, “that I’m cleared for another leave of absence, June through August.” 

“How generous of him.” 

“He _also_ said that if I’m late coming back again, not even a personal visit from the king will save my job.” 

“Well,” she huffed, “in that case, we’ll just have to ask Dot to appeal to God to show up on your behalf.” 

“ _Or_ , and this is just a thought, I could just come home on time.” 

“Where’s the fun in that?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Have some pure, unadulterated, historically inaccurate fluff. Many thanks to [piratesandpixiedust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratesandpixiedust/profile) for the beta.

Summer heat was giving way to milder autumn, and the sun had broken through the previously overcast sky, making for ideal riding weather. Jack was waiting on his bike just outside the front gate when Jane appeared in the doorway, strapping her helmet on. “Going riding with Jack, Miss!” she hollered into the house, then pulled the door shut behind her and jogged toward him. “Morning,” she sing-songed in a way so unconsciously similar to Phryne that Jack had to fight a smile. Jane may not be Phryne’s biological daughter, but she was a constant reminder that family went so much deeper than blood, and he felt privileged every single day to be a part of this one. 

“Morning, Jane.” He waited until she’d settled onto her own bike, which he’d fetched for her and left leaning against the fence, then gestured up and down the street. “Foreshore or botanic gardens?” 

“Gardens,” she said. “One last look at the flowers before they die off for the winter. And you can tell me the names of all of them.” 

“All that reading you do, I’m sure you know them better than I do by now,” Jack said, kicking off north towards the Royal Botanic Gardens instead of south towards the beach. 

“I’m not the one who can rattle off the genus of mistletoe off the top of my head,” Jane teased, matching his pace beside him. 

“I can’t believe you remember that,” Jack grumbled. 

“Are you kidding? Did you see Aunt Prudence’s face? I’ll never forget it. She looked like someone had swapped her sherry for lemon juice.” 

Jack laughed. “I suspect that look had little to do with my knowledge of botany.” 

Jane’s knowing laughter joined his. “Maybe,” she conceded. “She likes you, you know. She’d cut out her own tongue before she’d admit it, but she does. She thinks you’re good for Miss Phryne.” 

“And what do you think?” 

“Are you interrogating me, Inspector?” she asked with a grin. 

Blood or not, she really _was_ Phryne’s daughter. But for all that she was joking, he answered her seriously. “This arrangement impacts your life much more than it does Mrs. Stanley’s.” 

“Well, I don’t know about Miss Phryne, but I think getting caught with that old lady’s jewels was the best thing that ever happened to me.” 

“Miss Fisher has a way of doing that, doesn’t she? Taking what should be the worst of our lives and turning it into something good.” 

“She told me that _you_ were the one who asked her to talk to me that first time. And that you convinced Welfare to let me stay with her.” 

“They didn’t take much convincing.” 

“But you could have sent me straight back to them. If you were going strictly by the book, you should have. But you didn’t. And because you didn’t…” She paused as a car approached them and Jack dropped back so they were riding single file while it passed. “I had _no one_ ,” she continued when the engine noise was gone and they were back side-by-side. “And now I have a wonderful home, with a mother, a big sister, two goofy uncles, and a grandpa. And someone to ride my bike with, too.” She grinned at him again. “It’s a good enough reason to keep you around.” 

“I’m glad you think so,” he laughed. “Speaking of Welfare…” Jack hesitated, reluctant to shift the mood away from the playful back-and-forth they were enjoying, but the direction of their conversation left him an opening for something that he’d been thinking about for weeks, unsure of how or when to bring it up. Now seemed as good a time as any. “I stopped by there the other day on my way home and picked up some paperwork… Adoption paperwork. I thought, if that’s something that you would be interested in, maybe we could…” 

“You want to adopt me?” 

“It’s up to you, and you don’t have to decide right now, but... I would like that, yes.” 

“Can we stop?” Jane asked, slowing her bike down and looking for a place to pull off the road. 

Jack cursed himself inwardly, but kept his face neutral. “Of course,” he said as he followed her onto the grasses of Fawkner Park. “I’m sorry, Jane, I didn’t mean to overstep. You don’t have to—” 

“We’re not stopping because you overstepped,” Jane said, pulling to a halt. “We’re stopping because I want to hug you, and I can’t if we’re both on bicycles.” 

“Oh.” Jack climbed off his bike and leaned it against a tree. “Alright then. So does that mean—oof!” 

Having let her own bike drop to the ground, Jane had launched herself at him. “Yes.” 

As he returned her tight hug, Jack felt something settle inside him, like a puzzle piece sliding into place, one he hadn’t even realized was missing. And he couldn’t help but think that catching her with those jewels might just have been one of the best things that had ever happened to him, too. 

He was briefly concerned that taking this step would change the easy repartee they often enjoyed, but he needn’t have worried. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than she pulled away with a glint of challenge in her eyes. “Race you across the park,” she dared, climbing back onto her bike. 

Never one to back down from a challenge issued by a Fisher woman, Jack remounted his own bike. “First one to Adams Street wins,” he agreed. 

He chased the laughter of his soon-to-be daughter down the path that cut diagonally across the park, going fast enough to give her a race but checking his speed so she was the clear winner as they pulled onto Adams Street. 

“You let me win,” she accused good-naturedly. 

“I never.” 

“Oh, _please_. You’ve been training for the Tour de France for years now; you’d leave me for dust if you really wanted to.” 

“I didn’t want to.” 

“Next time, you have to show me how fast you can _really_ go,” she said as they took a more leisurely pace into the gardens. 

_Next time_. He savored that phrase. Until a few months ago, riding had always been a solitary endeavor, something Jack did by and for himself. Even now, he rode alone more often than not, and still enjoyed the solitude of an individual ride. But a few weeks after he and Phryne had returned to Melbourne, Jane had shyly approached him saying she didn’t want to interfere with his training but maybe after the race would he mind if she came riding with him sometimes? Jack had been so moved that she wanted to spend time with him that he’d said “Hang the training” and took her with him that day, and any day that she’d wanted to since. He couldn’t push himself as hard when Jane came along, but it was a sacrifice well worth making, and his rides with Jane were the ones that he treasured the most. 

He half expected all his training to be for naught anyway — Phryne could make all the promises she liked, and it wasn’t that he didn’t trust her to do her best to keep them, but he knew her well, and knew that if something came up that she deemed more important... well, he’d already seen her drop everything for a spontaneous intercontinental flight once, and he’d (mostly) made peace with the knowledge that she could very well do it again. 

With all that in mind, it was with a surreal sense of disbelief that he disembarked the _RMS Maloja_ in Marseille four days before the start of the 1931 Tour. Phryne immediately dragged him to a waiting cab that brought them to Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles, and within an hour of getting off the boat, they were boarding a train bound for Paris. Within another half hour, the train was pulling out of the station and they were on their way. 

Phryne was quiet during the train ride, having mixed feelings about their destination. She hadn’t been back to Paris since she’d run away from Rene, and the excitement she felt to be along on this adventure with Jack was tempered with trepidation. She’d always known that coming back here would be a loaded journey, but her anxiety to be returning was not lessened by being expected. 

Whenever her thoughts started down a dark path, she would discreetly steal a glance at Jack to bring herself back to the present. He was sitting beside her reading a well-worn copy of _Antony and Cleopatra_ , no doubt trying to keep his own France-related demons at bay in his own way. 

He was not, however, so absorbed in his book that he didn’t notice her pensive staring out the window, and he frequently looked up from his reading to glance at her, first curious, then gradually morphing into concerned. “You alright?” he asked eventually, his hand reaching out to cover hers. She allowed his touch to ground her in the moment, and when she turned away from the window, she was able to give him an honest smile. 

“Of course.” She turned her hand over so they were palm to palm and wrapped her fingers around his. 

When she’d left Rene, Phryne had sworn that she would never again entrust her heart to a man. She had almost lost herself, and wasn’t about to risk it happening again. She had flitted around from lover to lover, never keeping them around long enough for feelings to develop. Until Jack. To whom she had given her heart in such tiny increments that she hadn’t even realized she was doing it until it was completely in his hands. It was all the small gestures that added up to so much more: _I’ve had a word to Welfare. … Have them incinerated. … What will you be, her guardian angel? … I dismiss the charges. … I think you’ve earned the badge._ It was roller coaster rides and Cole Porter duets and tiny brooches in the shape of a swallow. Phryne’d had many men fall in love with her, but not one of them had ever tried to be her friend first. 

Until Jack. 

France was a country that was haunted for both of them, but coming here now gave them an opportunity to exorcise those demons together. Phryne had fled Paris to escape a man who’d made her feel afraid, hurt, possessed, and was returning to it with a man who made her feel safe, respected, and free. Keeping her hand in his, she leaned away from the window and towards Jack, resting her head on his shoulder as the two of them watched the countryside drift past. Those who had robbed them of the delight of this country were long gone, and it was high time for them to take it back. 

In many ways, they both found it a relief to spend time together outside of Melbourne. In Paris, there was no need to worry that a picture from a nosy photographer or chatter from a neighborhood gossip would get back to Russell Street and land Jack with a reprimand or worse. Here there was nothing to stop them from walking hand in hand through markets and museums, and no one spared them a second glance if they shared a kiss on the banks of the Seine. Back home, the secrecy was part of the thrill, but Phryne found that she enjoyed the freedom to be openly and unrestrictedly in love more than she had expected to. 

But while museums and riverside kisses were enjoyable, they weren’t the primary reason they were here, and Jack spent most of the days leading up to the race getting accustomed to his new, Tour-approved bicycle and reminding muscles that had gone slightly dormant from traveling that they had a difficult job to do in the coming weeks. Phryne found ways to occupy herself while he was training, and the evening before the race, just before dragging him out to a fancy dinner, she presented him with the fruits of her labor. 

The first gift was a whole set of new racing outfits. “You’re going to be riding with professionals, Jack,” she explained when he started to protest. “You’ll need to look like one. As your sponsor, I insist.” After he reluctantly acquiesced, she brought out the second gift: the latest, most technologically advanced and safest helmet on the market. “I have many uses for this,” she said, bringing a hand up to the side of his head. “I don’t want it getting damaged.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

“Good. Then let’s go eat.” 

That was an idea Jack could unequivocally get behind, though he had to summon all his self-control not to wince at the prices on the menu of the restaurant she’d chosen. It was a beautiful place on the river with a view of the Eiffel Tower, and a single glass of wine cost half his weekly salary. It still rankled his working class upbringing to be brought to places like this, but indulging in the finer things was part of who Phryne was, along with a generous nature that compelled her to share her indulgences with those she cared about. He was slowly coming to accept them in the spirit in which they were offered. 

He was here, after all. 

Phryne raised her glass of the ridiculously expensive wine in a toast. “To childhood dreams.” 

“And the ones who help realize them.”

**Author's Note:**

> Criticism, constructive or otherwise, is always welcome.


End file.
